After having spent the winter in the operating theatre at the hands of a skilled team of Noakes’ surgeons, Sean Langman’s Orma 60 trimaran has been re-launched ahead of a busy summer.

The crew of Team Australia has just one week to test its new lifting prop, new rig and trimmer shape before six men, most of the same crew from the trimaran’s express run to Hobart back in February, will attempt to set an official Trans-Tasman speed record from Sydney to Auckland.

The fastest time ever for the crossing is held by Ian Johnston, who in the 1986 race, sailed the trimaran Bullfrog Sunblockthe 1280 nautical miles in 6 days, 8hrs 50mins, an average speed of just over 8 knots.

SSAA races usually went to New Plymouth, on the west coast.
Auckland is on the east coast and to get there you gave to sail around the top and down the east coast, much further. Very dangerous around the top of nth island.

It was built as the Steinlager trimaran (Steinglager 1?) sailed by Peter Blake and Mike Quilter went on to win the Round Australia Race it was basically a 60' ORMA style trimaran and had an amazing chord on the wingmast. During the round Australia Race they crossed the Great Australian Bight under wingmast alone it was later sold to Loick Peyron and became Lada Poch IV and broke up while being raced.

It was built as the Steinlager trimaran (Steinglager 1?) sailed by Peter Blake and Mike Quilter went on to win the Round Australia Race it was basically a 60' ORMA style trimaran and had an amazing chord on the wingmast. During the round Australia Race they crossed the Great Australian Bight under wingmast alone it was later sold to Loick Peyron and became Lada Poch IV and broke up while being raced.

It was built as the Steinlager trimaran (Steinglager 1?) sailed by Peter Blake and Mike Quilter went on to win the Round Australia Race it was basically a 60' ORMA style trimaran and had an amazing chord on the wingmast. During the round Australia Race they crossed the Great Australian Bight under wingmast alone it was later sold to Loick Peyron and became Lada Poch IV and broke up while being raced.

Also broke off the bow of 1 float on return trip to NZ after 2sail 88.

G'day Ben thanks for posting, how did the boat handle? Was it oh wow were doing 39kts or oh fuck were all gonna die

Funny, I expected the boat to make the speeds feel like less, but at first doing 22-25knots a couple of hours out from th heads that felt crazy fast! because of the sea state and our high angle to the breeze. Then as we slowely cracked away into the night I got to experiance 25-30 knots, this is pretty full on in 4mtr waves and quite a violent action on the body that took some time to get used to. By early morning we where seeing up to 40 knots of wind and the speed sitting around 32 knots and every now and then with an insane burst of accelaration we would get a run on that would take us to 36-38 knots and then work its way back to around 32 again. I would say that whilst the high speeds are quite full on and the adrenilan is definately pumping the action of the boat improves by the time you are doing 35-40 knots, the motion almost turns into a vibation as the boat is simply abilterating what little water it is going through by then, it is one of the best felings I have ever experianced and I am sure the boats motion would change depending on the sea state you are going through and especially the angle to the breeze.

The best true wind angle seemed to be 115 degrees, at this angle in 30+ knots of wind the driving is easy, the boat behaves insanely well, she is bow up with 2/3 of the leward float out of the water and the centre hul in/out constantly. Unfortunatley we had the wind at around 80-90 for a big part of the leg across which just held us back a little from consistantly higher averages, basically if the top end of NZ had have been 100 milesfurther south I think we may have done 600+ nm for the 24hrs. You have to trust the foil when driving, on non foil boats you tend to have to run away with the pressure. With a foil that works so effectively when the power comes on and you are stairing the back of the next big growler you head up(if you react early enough), put more power into the boat, the bows rise as the boat accelerates and the foil works even more, then you get to the back of the wave in front and launch over it from behind as if it is a ramp, basically the best feeling ever!

The problem is at 80 degrees true you feel like coming up is a bad option and you feel like going down is bad so quite often you just hold your course and your nerve and let the boat do its thing! Give me the helm of that thing, 25-30knots of wind, 4-5 metres of swell 2 x reefs in the Main and the smallest HWJ jib and I would be in heaven! I miss it already..... All the best to the crew of the Coastal, I think they have the legs....